As the fall semester winds down at the University of Utah, students and the campus community are still adjusting to HB 128's gun policy overhaul.
The bill, which took effect May 7, allows concealed weapons permit holders as young as 18 to openly carry firearms in school buildings, classrooms and dorms. The updated law also means students can store loaded guns in their dorm rooms without a permit or gun safe — though the university encourages the latter, according to a post by the university’s Department of Public Safety.
I’ve seen college-aged men, people I consider friends, become obsessed with guns. Some of my friends hit their 20s and get into golf, running or backpacking around Southeast Asia to “find themselves.” Others get guns.
One of my dumbest and more irresponsible friends, which he admits himself, told me explicitly, “You need guns because they’re cool.” There exists characters like him on every college campus across the country – immature young men with chill attitudes towards guns.
Still, he thinks the new rule will increase campus safety, a point that I fail to see the merit in. In fairness, he did express concern about the possibility of guns being stored loaded on campus housing, acknowledging “there’s just a lot of shenanigans going on in the dorms.”
Men ages 18 to 24 experienced the highest rate of firearm-related deaths (32.3 per 100,000 population) compared with any other age group, according to a study by the Utah Department of Health and Human Services. Many men in this age group go to the U, attend classes and live in dorms. And they can be armed while doing so.
My generation practiced school shooting drills every year. As a freshman in 1998, my high school in Illinois sheltered in place for an hour after a false alarm threat. For that hour, I thought someone had brought a gun into my school. I feared for my life, and so did my fellow students who were huddled together in that classroom.
Now, people with guns are welcome into my classrooms by my university. When my friends and I express discomfort being around guns, it’s because we have lived with and know the fear of gun violence.
My high school experience was defined by these omnipresent threats of violence, and going to college did not make me anymore safe. So far, in 2025, there have been 64 school shootings, with 37 happening on college campuses, according to CNN’s analysis of events reported by the Gun Violence Archive, Education Week and Everytown for Gun Safety. That statistic paints a picture of trauma in the wake of guns at school.
Students in the dorms, especially young men who are in their most vulnerable ages for gun death and living on their own for the first time, can possess an unlocked and loaded firearm in their rooms. Young people having access to firearms can be dangerous, especially to themselves. The most common firearm-related deaths were suicides, according to the University of Utah’s Undergraduate Research Journal. In 2018, approximately 38% of University of Utah students had a mental health condition, and an estimated 58% of those students went untreated.
To supporters of the new rule, I admit I am a naive gun handler and have no plans to change that because I have trouble seeing a gun as anything but something used to kill someone. So I don’t have a gun and am unaccustomed to the safeties in place to ensure guns are used properly. What I do know is that any safety features on a gun are rendered useless by simply not having a gun.
Keeping guns off campus will save lives. Contact Rep. Matthew H. Gwynn, the chief sponsor of HB 128, and express your concerns about 18-year-olds openly bringing handguns to class. If you are a student at the U and feel someone close to you getting worrisome about guns, contact 801-585-2677 (COPS) to speak with campus security in a non-emergency.
And, if a friend suddenly changes their life to revolve around guns, check in on them, too.
William Keeley wrote this op-ed as a student in the Department of Communication’s Intermediate Journalism course. It is published as part of a collaborative including nonprofit Amplify Utah and The Daily Utah Chronicle.
